The Lost Art
by wizebeth
Summary: All the conversations Alicia needs to have,  pretending her and Will never broke up  because, lets be honest everyone in the show needs to actually talk to each other - it would sort out a lot of issues! I'm new to fanfic so please review x


The Lost Art.

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><p>She had been putting it off for months. She saw that now, reluctant though she was to accept it. She didn't want responsibility for the finality her words would have. So many conversations each competing desperately to be the first, the first to change everything, because once they were done everything would indeed change and she knew it. Boy did she know it.<p>

Will first because that conversation would change the course of all the others and to a certain extent dictate the necessity of the others: if they ended it should she tell her children, lose their respect for something that was over. Deep down she knew the answer was yes, she should tell them and that delay in doing so would only increase the ramifications of her actions. And, she thought privately she deserved to lose their respect if it ended and all it had been was a seedy affair with her boss. If that was the case she knew that, by her own moral code, she should indeed suffer the consequences.

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><p>Will.<p>

She knew she owed him answers, knew that he loved her, knew that she loved him. But was it enough? Was love enough to make up for all the rest?

Enough to make up for her children?

For her marriage?

For her job?

For scandal and paparazzi and abuse, was it really worth it?

She realised with a shock that she didn't know.

She had already put it off for far to long, but as she walked into his apartment and saw his smile and the look of love, happiness and sheer disbelief that she was there and that, after waiting so long a part of her was finally his, she couldn't bring herself to do it. At least, not yet: not before he had held her in his arms again.

If all this was going to end she damn well wanted to ensure that she remembered every detail of every moment between now and the end of whatever this was. And she knew at least a part of it would end this afternoon and their relationship would change, perhaps irrevocably.

She lay in his arms breathing in his scent and trying to work up both the nerve to start, and where to begin, but he beat her to it.

'Alicia,' he whispered softly, tracing patterns over her pale skin and breathing in the scent of her hair.

'Will?' she breathed back, relief that she didn't have to break the gentle, shielding silence and let the outside into their little world washing over her.

'What do you want this to be? He asked her, what is this to you?'

She turned to face him, cupped his face in her hands and kissed him softly as the answer came to her. 'This is happiness. Being with you…. Being with you makes me feel lighter somehow… like the world isn't so dark and cold…' she stopped as a strange expression twisted his features and all his control evaporated. He grabbed her shoulders, forcing her to look at him as everything he had anted to say for so long just burst forth in a torrent of quick curt sentences.

'Is that what this is to you? Just something to comfort you? Just a little fun to lighten your spirits? Will you end this when you stop feeling so fucking depressed?'

'Will, I said I didn't want to end this –'

'But do you not want to end it because of me, or the sex?'

'Will I –'

'Is this just sex to you Alicia? Am I just a plaything to you?'

'Will that's not –'

'Don't get me wrong, being with you is amazing, you are amazing, but if this is just sex to you, you need to tell me.

You need to tell me because… because I love you ok? And I need to know so I can deal with it if you decide you are going to end this because I won't. I've waited to damn long to give you up now even if only a tiny part of you is mine to give up.

I know its complicated. God damn it I know. You're married to the fucking states attorney, you have kids and the press and I'm your boss and Diane told me to drop this and I being investigat-'

He the sudden horror anger and fear in her deep brown eyes stopped him and he knew he'd gone too far, revealed too much

'Diane told you to drop this', she hissed, 'you're being investigated? Why, why didn't you tell me? What am I to you that you didn't tell me? That you lied to me every time I asked what was wrong?'

'I wanted to protect you, protect whatever this is between us for as long as I could.'

'So you lied.'

'Alic-'

'What is it? What are you being investigated for?'

'Judicial bribes – they think I'm introducing bookies and judges at my basketball games and influencing case outcomes by writing off the judges debts. Its not true, I swear its not Alicia.'

She nodded but her eyes were wide in her pale face. 'Who's investigating you?'

He looked away.

'It's Peter isn't it,' she spat bitterly.

'Yes he's appointed Wendy Scott-Carr as the special prosecutor to avoid any appearance of a conflict of interest. That's why Diane told me to stop this; Wendy came to talk to her about the investigation.'

'Honestly! Anyone would think you were taking advantage of me, that I wasn't a grown woman capable of making her own decisions. I'm as much to blame as you are but instead of confronting me of talking to us, they are going after you. And now I have to end this to protect you, this is all because of me and I won't let myself be responsible for causing you any more pain. God knows I've done enough of that as it is, but I can't anymore, not to you.' She kissed him tenderly and was halfway out of bed when he recovered himself and grabbed her arm.

'Alicia, I'm not naïve, I knew what I was letting myself in for when we started this and I didn't care, I wanted you too much. It was selfish I know, but its true: I need to know, if I hadn't let slip about the investigation and Diane, what would you have said? What am I, what is this to you?'


End file.
